Supplies needed to accompany this novelty offering: a mirror and some friends. Laughs and much silliness sure to follow....
This “wearable book” presents a series of different beards for kids to try on by holding the pages up just under their noses.
What do a lumberjack, a pirate, a cowboy, a sailor, Santa Claus, and a police officer all have in common? Beards! And kids can try them all on with this novelty offering. In addition to a brief bit of verse, each double-page spread features a bearded face from the nose down so that when kids, or adults, hold the book up to their faces, they are magically and hilariously transformed. The skin tone, mustache and beard shape and color, mouth, and teeth are different for each face, ranging from a pale-skinned, open-mouthed lumberjack with a curly red beard to a lantern-jawed African-American police officer with a mustache and stern expression. Although the verses seem perfunctory and occasionally awkward (“This black beard / is braided and large. / Squint one eye and / let out an ‘ARRRG!’ ”), they won’t get in the way of the interactive fun sparked by the vibrant and funny illustrations.
Supplies needed to accompany this novelty offering: a mirror and some friends. Laughs and much silliness sure to follow. (Board book. 3-6)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62370-183-3
Page Count: 12
Publisher: Capstone Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Dec. 9, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
As ephemeral as a valentine.
Daywalt and Jeffers’ wandering crayons explore love.
Each double-page spread offers readers a vision of one of the anthropomorphic crayons on the left along with the statement “Love is [color].” The word love is represented by a small heart in the appropriate color. Opposite, childlike crayon drawings explain how that color represents love. So, readers learn, “love is green. / Because love is helpful.” The accompanying crayon drawing depicts two alligators, one holding a recycling bin and the other tossing a plastic cup into it, offering readers two ways of understanding green. Some statements are thought-provoking: “Love is white. / Because sometimes love is hard to see,” reaches beyond the immediate image of a cat’s yellow eyes, pink nose, and black mouth and whiskers, its white face and body indistinguishable from the paper it’s drawn on, to prompt real questions. “Love is brown. / Because sometimes love stinks,” on the other hand, depicted by a brown bear standing next to a brown, squiggly turd, may provoke giggles but is fundamentally a cheap laugh. Some of the color assignments have a distinctly arbitrary feel: Why is purple associated with the imagination and pink with silliness? Fans of The Day the Crayons Quit (2013) hoping for more clever, metaliterary fun will be disappointed by this rather syrupy read.
As ephemeral as a valentine. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-9268-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
High-quality, inclusive illustrations make this one stand out.
From the changing season to decorations and costumes, children anticipate Halloween.
Little readers will enjoy all of the familiar markers of the season included in this book: falling leaves, jack-o’-lanterns, Halloween costumes, candy, and trick-or-treating. Everett’s rhyming couplets bob along safely, offering nothing that will wow but enough to keep the pages turning. It’s Wen’s illustrations that give the most to readers, full of bustling scenes and lovely details. A double-page spread of the children in town in front of the candy store includes jars with individually drawn treats and other festive delicacies. The townwide celebration features instruments, creative costumes, and a diverse crowd of people. There are three children who appear as the focus of the illustrations, though there are many secondary characters. One bespectacled White child is drawn in a manual wheelchair, another has dark brown skin, the third presents Asian. The child in the wheelchair is shown as a full participant. Readers will enjoy spotting spooks like a vampire, goblin, and werewolf, as they sometimes appear in the background and other times blend in with the crowd. The familiar trappings of Halloween paired with the robust illustrations will have little readers wanting to reread even if the content itself is not startlingly new.
High-quality, inclusive illustrations make this one stand out. (Picture book. 3-5)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0586-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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